The Last Shall Be Last: Ethnic, Racial, and Nativist Bias in Distributive Politics

• Published date: 01 November 2023
• Author: Gerald Gamm,Thad Kousser
• Date: 01 November 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lsq.12413

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LEGISLATIVE STUDIES QUARTERLY, 48, 4, November 2023

DOI: 10.1111/lsq.12413

GERALD GAMM

University of Rochester

THAD KOUSSER

University of California, San Diego

The Last Shall Be Last: Ethnic, Racial,

and Nativist Bias in Distributive

Politics

Examining historical budget and spending patterns from state legislatures,

we show that inequality evident in other realms of American politics had a pro-

found, dollars- and- cents, impact on the expenditures that flowed to political

districts. Given the salience of race, class, and immigration status to American

politics, we would expect that distributive spending reflects the same biases that

shape voting patterns, representation, and policymaking. But, to our knowledge,

this question has not previously been studied. Drawing on detailed, archival data

from six states in the 1921– 61 era, we uncover clear evidence of bias. Districts

with more immigrants win significantly less money, controlling for a host of other

factors. So do districts with large numbers of non- whites. Thus residents of dis-

tricts dominated by native- born, Anglo constituencies receive more dollars than

those in other districts, even when controlling for the identities of legislators and

other characteristics of the districts.

If politics is the study of “who gets what, when, how”— in

Harold Lasswell’s (1936) memorable phrase— few subjects demand

greater attention than the politics of appropriations and, specifi-

cally, the distribution of particulariz ed benefits to localities. Given

the longstanding salience of race, class, and immigration status to

American politics, we would expect that state distributive spending

has historically reflected the same biases that shape voting pat-

terns, representation, and policymaking. Are today’s battles over

immigration and the representation of racial and ethnic interests

a departure from the battles of the past, or continuous with them?

To our knowledge, this question has never previously been

studied. The existing literature on distributive politics does not

examine constituent demography, and, with limited exceptions,

© 2023 Washington University in St. Louis.

766 Gerald Gamm and Thad Kousser

scholarship on race and class does not explore the distribution of

district spending. Here we tackle this subject, drawing on a new

data set that allows us to consider legislator attributes, district size,

and the demographic characteristics of constituents as variables

explaining the distribution of state spending by district. The data

are drawn from the experiences of six American states in 1921,

1941, and 1961, an era bridging the changes wrought by the New

Deal and World War II on American society and government.

Whatever the state or year, we find that constituent demograph-

ics drive biases in distributive spending; districts with more im-

migrants and more non- white residents receive less state spending

than other districts.

Legislators themselves have been the focus in most studies

of distributive politics, as scholars have examined the advantages

accruing to those with more seniority (Ferejohn1974; Lee2003;

Fowler and Hall2015), those chairing committees (Binder2008;

Lazarus 2009, 2010; Berry and Fowler 2016), and those in the

majority party (Fenno1966, 1973; Froman 1967; Ferejohn1974;

Mayhew1974; Owens and Wade1984; Lee 2000; Engstrom and

Vanberg2010). A related body of literature has looked at dis-

trict spending from the perspective of constituents. In particular,

Lee (1998, 2000), Lee and Oppenheimer (1999), Ansolabehere,

Gerber, and Snyder(2002), Ansolabehere and Snyder(2006, 2008),

and Elis, Malhotra, and Meredith(2009) have demonstrated that

differences in district size have great consequences for the distribu-

tion of governmental funds: all else equal, residents of smaller dis-

tricts receive more per constituent than residents of larger districts.

However, in considering distributive politics, it is more than

the number of residents that distinguishes one district from an-

other: who those voters are may have a powerful effect on how

they are treated. Our central argument is that who lives in a dis-

trict should determine how much it gets in distributive spending.

Recent scholarship, for example, demonstrates how class, ethnicity,

and race shape representation and policymaking, with persistent

disadvantages for less wealthy Americans (Skocpol2004; Jacobs

and Page2005; Bartels2008; Gilens2012; Gilens and Page2014;

Schlozman, Verba, and Brady2012; Carnes 2013; Harden2015),

non- white residents (Hero and Tolbert 1996; Hero1998; Griffin

and Newman2008; Hajnal2010; White, Nathan, and Faller2015),

and native- born Americans (Gamm and Kousser2013; Abrajano

and Hajnal2015). Alongside these recent studies is a rich body of

work considering how African American and Latino interests are

767The Last Shall Be Last

represented in the political system (Swain1995; Hajnal, Gerber, and

Louch2002; Tate2003; Meier, Juenke, Wrinkle, and Polinard2005;

Grose2011; Minta 2011; Juenke2014; Clark2019). In his work,

Grose(2011) broke important ground in examining how differ-

ences in the race and party affiliation of a member of Congress

affected the allocation of federal funds to African American edu-

cational institutions and predominantly Black counties— the only

example we can locate of research linking the make- up of con-

stituents to state spending— but Grose did not analyze the more

general distributional politics of race.

In our historical analysis of six states, we show that inequal-

ity evident in other realms of American politics had a profound,

dollars- and- cents, impact on the expenditures that flowed to po-

litical districts. To explore the fiscal consequences of political in-

equality, we measure the demographics of districts and analyze

whether they affect levels of spending. Some state lawmakers rep-

resented districts in which over 40% of constituents were immi-

grants, while other members of the same state house came from

districts whose constituents were overwhelmingly native- born.

Racial and ethnic minorities made up a majority of some districts,

while others were almost entirely white. We ask whether these soci-

etal differences translated into political inequality in state capitols,

costing outsider constituencies concrete dollars when it came to

state appropriations. This approach allows us to ask whether the

systematic biases in American policymaking on the basis of class

or race has historically tilted the distribution of district spending

in the American states.

We uncover clear evidence of bias. Districts with more im-

migrants won significantly less money, controlling for a host of

other factors. So did districts with more members of “other races,”

primarily Latinos, Native Americans, and Asian Americans in our

sample of six states. Thus, as we will show, residents of districts

dominated by native- born, Anglo constituencies received more

dollars than those in districts with large numbers of foreign- born

or non- white residents. This bias existed alongside the powerful

pro- rural bias that was characteristic of malapportionment. We

confirm that the impact of malapportionment that Ansolabehere,

Gerber, and Snyder(2002) and Ansolabehere and Snyder(2006,

2008) documented at the county level also affected spending per

constituent at the district level. Since predominantly white, heavily

rural areas have tended to be those most advantaged in malappor-

tioned systems— whether the reference is to American states before